Re: The rise of patrilineal clans in early farming civs

Societies evolve and the answer to the problem of male sexual access and rivalry was at least partially resolved in Western Civilization by Monogamy. To some extent that progress has been eroded by the sexual revolution where 20 percent of men have sex with 70 percent of women. It is a reflection on the pareto principle. It seems likely that in addition to warfare agriculture disrupted the egalitarian traditions associated with hunter gathers as resources became increasingly unequally distributed. Unequal distribution of resources influence mating preferences even today.

Additionally the pareto distribution of resources increases male aggression. Pareto distribution patterns makes warfare more attractive to young males unable to compete by other means in the sexual market place. We can see that today in the disconnect between poverty and violence in comparative cultural analysis.

Agriculture made civilization and organized warfare possible but it would be hard to prove that the overall level of violence changed. It is also worth noting that incompetence carries a higher price as social complexity increases favoring different patterns of sexual selection.

Re: The rise of patrilineal clans in early farming civs

Confined resources, competition and conflict over resources. Men are better in a brawl than women.

There could be other more weird reasons playing into this though. A more far flung idea would be the knock-off effect of diet wiping out part of the male population due to some intricate mechanism of genetics.

Don’t forget that a number of subtle incremental alterations can build to create one sudden genetic shift. It may even have been about a certain stage in cultural development where those less adapted to larger groups simply fell by the wayside - this wouldn’t fully account for the other sex though.

Re: The rise of patrilineal clans in early farming civs

The connection to agriculture is misleading because the same pattern of reduced number of males represented in the gene pool can be found in nomadic people. Any hierarchical social structure is likely to produce the same pattern accept in societies that enforce monogamy.

Re: The rise of patrilineal clans in early farming civs

wolfhnd » June 12th, 2018, 1:51 am wrote:The connection to agriculture is misleading because the same pattern of reduced number of males represented in the gene pool can be found in nomadic people. Any hierarchical social structure is likely to produce the same pattern accept in societies that enforce monogamy.

I guess it is quite possible that some shift in environmental conditions could’ve forced people into a more nomadic lifestyle for a period of time leading to the sudden dip on diversity?

Difficult to theory craft these things, but it’s always nice to hear about some new ideas.

Re: The rise of patrilineal clans in early farming civs

How was this not a factor during hunter-gatherer times? Presumably, people still lived in tribes then as well, yes? And tribes often fought each other too. Can anyone explain why this bottleneck occurred after agriculture and not before?

Re: The rise of patrilineal clans in early farming civs

tonydubois » August 27th, 2018, 8:57 pm wrote:How was this not a factor during hunter-gatherer times? Presumably, people still lived in tribes then as well, yes? And tribes often fought each other too. Can anyone explain why this bottleneck occurred after agriculture and not before?

The beginnings of real politics?

Hunter tribes - “They have stuff that we deserve so we’ll take it from them.”Farmer tribes - “We worked for this stuff so we’ll defend it rather than openly share it.”

Re: The rise of patrilineal clans in early farming civs

Farming produces a hierarchy of competence in which the more successful farmers dramatically expose the pareto principle in economics. Bigger, faster and stronger is of less value than in a hunter gather society. Farming requires discipline and long term planning and longer periods of intense labor. In a community the less disciplined will slowly migrate to being laborers instead of owners. The community will accept a certain degree of tyranny in exchange for security as will women who due to child care will not be able to participate in large scale production. The patriarchy over time will be normalized. Once it becomes thoroughly accepted the conditions for other kinds of tyrannical classes such as priests and nobility are thus established.

Reproduce success is tied to resources and if they are unevenly distributed sexual access may be as well.